There should be a way to tag an answer as the most complete answer the OP. Too often a question gets answered in the 37th post (once), then devolves into bickering about semantics. There should be a way to vote on the correct answer, then to have it elevated to the second post featured on that thread so that someone looking for an actual answer will not have to wade through so much extra stuff.
No, there should not be such a feature. Who gets to vote? Only licensed professionals with demonstrable expertise? Self-proclaimed “internet experts” who often don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground? How timely should those votes be? How much are you willing to pay a panel of experts to determine which answer is “best”?
Truth is not a democracy.
You can vote that pepperoni pizza is the best kind of pizza and Cat Whisperer can vote that sausage pizza is the best kind of pizza but that doesn’t change the fact that pineapple pizza is clearly the best kind of pizza.
“But that’s a matter of opinion!” you might argue, “In GQ we discuss FACT!” Unfortunately there are often differing opinions as to which facts are correct. This isn’t Yahoo! Answers. If it takes reading an entire thread to get the picture, so be it.
Right. The vast majority of the readers have no idea what the correct answer is. Leaving the “best” answer to be decided by majority vote is no indication of what the correct answer may actually be. And often there may be disagreement or debate even between experts.
But we can all agree that there is a correct answer to many GQs, right. In most cases, it becomes pretty obvious what the best answers are. Voting, or even having a mod elevate that to the top would save a lot of time. Wade through GQ, and see the average number of responses before an actual answer is posited. As much as popularity doesn’t make something true, it does allow responsible people to highlight good answers, and to develop a consensus. Either way, you are still free to read the thread and/or highlight more informative answers. I don’t see why this would be such a problem; at least not anymore than, say, an encyclopedia that anyone could edit. But that would be ridiculous 
But how many questions are of the type, “what’s the best pizza?”. The issue is that most questions there are answerable to a large extent, and if readers are looking for an answer, why not allow them to see that what consensus opinion is? I’m not suggesting that we say," this is the only answer", just that you say many people tend to agree with this answer.
Because the number of people in a thread that agree with a particular answer is irrelevant to the truth.
Edit: And frankly, I know in advance that I’d always just pick kanic’s answer as the best anyway.
In fact- I’ve changed my mind! I support this idea!
Well we would all know that the Best Answer was voted on by users, so it’s not like we’re claiming it a scientific fact that the chosen answer is The Best, and all others should be forsaken. It’d be a nice feature to have, and I don’t suspect readers would take it as the word of God.
In which case, surely it becomes pointless anyway?
It would be a cool feature but I agree hard to implement.
No. You weigh it as much as you would weigh a “This,” or “+1” or any other indication of user agreement, plus it would likely cut down on the number of posts that say nothing other than, “Me too.” Such a feature might be difficult to implement (I know precisely jack shit about vb), but the idea itself isn’t a bad one.
Make Stranger on a Train permanent staff in GQ and lock the thread after he answers. Same result.
It seems to me like a feature that would be better suited to IMHO than GQ.
How about, “Most popular answer”?
That makes less sense. In IMHO, we are specifically asking for multiple peoples opinions. In GQ, we aren’t asking for opinions at all. An answer in GQ should be either obviously correct or not. If there is a possibility that an answer that is properly sourced is still not correct, then the question was not GQ material, anyways. If there are conflicting answers, then it is either GQ or IMHO material.
So when do you vote?
What if you think an answer is best, so you vote for it. Then later I come along and give a better answer (as I do ;)). Do you change your vote?
What if you vote for an answer, then leave the thread. An hour later I come along and rip that answer to shreds as wrong in every aspect (as I do ;)). Does it still remain the “best” answer to new readers?
Is there a minimum number of votes needed? What do you do with shorter threads with no definitive answers, that still have nothing answers voted the best because lets face it, people like voting for stuff?
Best answer in the thread.
I mean, best answer in the thread.
Really, best answer in the thread.
I agree it would be totally useful to waste past the “You are clearly unqualified to lick the boots of my scientific l33tness” and “Hey, that sounds just like a death ray joke somebody made in 1960 for 15 minutes, and it just keeps getting funnier each time I repeat it.” Let the sausage float to the top, and if people wish, they can scroll down to see how it was made.
I think this is an important consideration as well. Except for the very simplest questions, there is rarely a single “correct” answer that sums up everything. People may give a partial answer that is later elaborated on by others; all of them are correct, but you have to read the whole thread to get the complete answer. And often enough there is dispute about the correct answer.
Frankly, when I have seen this kind of system implemented on other sites, I’ve been pretty unimpressed. Frequently the answer selected as “best” is incorrect or not very good.
people often when asking questions, especially help me fix this type of questions, provide partial information. people with experience in the area of the question might provide a number of possible answers based on different cases. the OP might provide more information over days.
sometimes the OP will come back after the problem is solved and identify the solution, sometimes they never come back. many answers will be valid at the time they were stated for a particular case, these are still valuable even though they didn’t fit the exact case of the OP as it is finally revealed.